Why Your Team Can't Win the Stanley Cup

Sometime in June an NHL team will be taking another picture just like this one. They will have arrived on top of the hockey mountain and fufilled a million dreams.

Everyone whose team is still playing hockey this week thinks that it will be their team, their year.

But the hockey gods have all sorts of tricks up their sleeves. Hot goalies, third line scoring heroes, and injuries all have a way of writing a script that nobody would have believed before the first puck was dropped.

It will happen this year, too. Someone's team is going to be taking that picture, but chances are that it won't be yours. Here's why.

Philadelphia Flyers

WHY WE'RE RIGHT: The Flyers were picked by The Hockey News to win the Stanley Cup this season with the addition of Chris Pronger. What they didn't factor into the equation is that the team subtracted all of its goaltending. Trying to win the Cup with a third string goaltender and a washed up Penguin as a backup just isn't going to cut it.

Boston Bruins

WHY WE'RE RIGHT: Without Marc Savard in the lineup the Bruins have been struggling to find the back of the net. With Tuuka Rask in net the Bruins are pinning their hopes on a rookie netmider. That's just asking for trouble.

WHY WE COULD BE WRONG: The 1992 version of Mark Recchi could suddenly reappear. Not.

Montreal Canadiens

WHY WE'RE RIGHT: The Canadiens can't play five on five hockey to save their lives and their revolving door of goaltending was just barely enough to keep them going. Playing the hottest offense on planet Earth in the first round isn't doing them any favors.

WHY WE COULD BE WRONG: The Canadiens power play is the second best in the league. Give them five or six chances a night and the scene changes.

Ottawa Senators

WHY WE'RE RIGHT: Despite its recent run down the stretch the Senators goaltending is iffy at best and its defense disappears often enough to be a major concern especially when they have to deal with Crosby and Malkin in the first round.

WHY WE COULD BE WRONG: Never underestimate a team this hot down the stretch. The Penguins are hereby officially on upset alert.

Buffalo Sabres

WHY WE'RE RIGHT: You can't win 0-0 hockey games. There just isn't enough scoring here from the second, third and fourth lines to make any sort of deep run. If Ryan Miller's average evenings wind up in the loss colum this year.

WHY WE COULD BE WRONG: If Ryan Miller continues his All-Universe season all you need is two goals a night.

Pittsburgh Penguins

WHY WE'RE RIGHT: A team that just turns it on an off when they feel like it is always in danger of not being able to find the switch at the right time. Evgeny Malkin is has been the poster boy for everything that is right and wrong with this team.

WHY WE COULD BE WRONG: You must knock the defending champ out not just down. Any team with with a healthy Sidney Crosby and Malkin is a team that is capable of anything.

Detroit Red Wings

WHY WE'RE RIGHT: Asking a team to return to the Stanley Cup Finals three years in a row is asking too much. Asking a team this old to do it borders on insanity.
Nobody wins the Cup with a rookie goalie. Nobody.

WHY WE COULD BE WRONG: Most of this team's stars haven't played an entire season due to injury and just might have something left in the tank. Could Chris Osgood have one more Cup run in him?

San Jose Sharks

WHY WE'RE RIGHT: The curse of the Shark continues. Nabakov proved yet again in the Olympics that he can't win a critcal game. Heatly and Thornton also have proven track records at this time of year that are nothing to be proud of.

WHY WE COULD BE WRONG: All of the elements have been there to make a run for five years. If somehow this team could put all of the pieces together all at once this could be the year.